Guest Post & Giveaway: It Started With Paris by Cathy Kelly

I was over the moon to be asked to be part of the blog tour for Cathy Kelly's latest book It Started With Paris as I've been a fan of her writing for years and have read all of her previous novels so was already looking forward to reading it.

I'm a bit behind with my reading schedule, due to personal reasons, so the planned review to run alongside this guest piece is not going to ready today as I only just started reading it yesterday, sorry Cathy, but should hopefully be uploaded later this week.

It all started with Paris. At the top of the Eiffel Tower, a young man proposes to his girlfriend, cheered on by delighted tourists. In that second, everything changes, not just for the happy couple, but for the family and friends awaiting their return in Bridgeport, Ireland...

Leila's been nursing a badly broken heart since her love-rat husband just upped and left her one morning, but she's determined to put on a brave face for the bride.

Vonnie, a widow and exceptional cake-maker, is just daring to let love back into her life, although someone seems determined to stop it.

And Grace, a divorced head teacher, finds the impending wedding of her son means that she's spending more time with her ex-husband. After all those years apart, is it possible she's made a mistake?

Cathy has very kindly written a short piece giving us an introduction to a few central characters that you'll meet in the book. 

It Started With Paris introduces us to lovely Grace, a divorced head teacher who has the perfect divorce in that she and her ex are kind to each other, never used their children as ammunition and are still friends fifteen years later. But when Grace’s grown up son gets engaged, and wedding plans means she spends more time with her ex, she begins to wonder if they made a mistake getting divorced all those years ago. Except he has a partner now, so she must be mad to be thinking this way, right..?

Leila had a whirlwind romance and a whirlwind marriage to music talent scout, Tynan, and when he walks out on her for a blonde from his office, that’s pretty whirlwind too. Devastated, twenty-nine-year-old Leila buries herself in her work but not everyone’s fooled by her story that she never wants to so much as look at a man again.

And finally, elegant American Vonnie was tragically widowed years before and she and her young son have come to live in her Irish-America husband’s family’s hometown to see if she can rebuild her life. Bridgeport – home to Grace and Leila – is a gorgeous community and Vonnie loves the wedding cake business she’s set up there. Then she falls in love, with a man with an ex-wife, Jennifer, who hasn’t really moved on since their marriage ended. Vonnie’s hoping she can have a second chance but poor Jennifer, angry, still alone and wishing she could turn the clock back, is devastated at seeing Vonnie and her ex so happy. Why can’t she find happiness, she thinks.

It Started With Paris is a story of strong women, gorgeous men (some of them!) and how life never quite works out the way you think it will.... I do hope you like it!!

Cathy

Thanks to the lovely Lucy at Orion Publishing one lucky winner can win a copy of It Started with Paris, enter via the Rafflecopter form below (sorry restricted to UK residents only).   Rafflecopter giveaway
The It Started with Paris tour continues tomorrow at Candy's Bookcase but also check out any of the previous tour posts that you might have missed.